edited by Shay
Seeing that everyone’s expressions were still not great, Yue Xiuzhi sighed and said, “Why are you all wearing such gloomy faces? I’m just going to get some sleep.”
“After I wake up, you guys will definitely surpass me. I wonder if my title as the ‘Number One Force of Jiuhuaxiao’ will still hold.”
“Come on, you’re too modest. You can’t even beat me now. Are you really expecting to be Jiuhuaxiao’s strongest force a few years from now?” Lu Fanyi retorted, not without a hint of annoyance. After all, he had worked hard for over six hundred years, and now Yue Xiuzhi was about to leave again.
Yue Xiuzhi tilted his head and chuckled, “You have a point there. When the time comes, you guys better not make it too hard for me. I still have my reputation to uphold.”
This was an attempt to lighten the mood, but it couldn’t conceal the underlying conversation.
Feng Yuan seemed to have something to say but hesitated.
“Shixiong, do you have something on your mind? Feel free to speak,” Yue Xiuzhi said when he noticed Feng Yuan’s hesitation.
“Your relationship with His Majesty… What’s really going on?” Feng Yuan’s expression was conflicted. He wasn’t sure if he should ask this question, but he couldn’t help it. The recent changes have been so significant. Previously, Yue Xiuzhi and His Majesty had been at odds, but now it seemed that Yue Xiuzhi was His Majesty’s top priority.
“I’ve mentioned this to Lu Fanyi-shixiong and Lin-shixiong before. There have been some misunderstandings between me and His Majesty, but it’s not his fault,” Yue Xiuzhi said after a moment of silence. “At this point, there’s no need to hide anything, so put your mind at ease.”
He felt that Lu Fanyi must have already explained this to Feng Yuan, but Feng Yuan still seemed uneasy.
“Previously, I had a hostile attitude towards the Demon Clan, and later, I found out that His Majesty carries demon blood in his veins. My treatment of him was… quite bad. In a way, you could say I deserved it,” Yue Xiuzhi admitted.
He went on to make up some reasons for his change of heart towards His Majesty. Inside, he felt quite guilty, but on the surface, he appeared sincere.
Feng Yuan felt somewhat reassured, but Feng Lan, who had remained silent, seemed a bit puzzled.
Feng Lan remembered that Yue Xiuzhi had indeed been hostile towards the Demon Clan in the past. However, what Yue Xiuzhi didn’t mention was that he had let go of his indiscriminate hostility towards the Demon Clan even before he took His Majesty as his disciple. There was a mission they had taken on together about three years before Yue Xiuzhi accepted His Majesty as his disciple. The mission was about a remote city in the northern region of the spiritual world. It had always been isolated from the outside world, and it was discovered that there was a high-level Demon Clan presence there.
When they arrived, they realized that this small city had a rift leading to the Demon Realm. However, due to its remote location, nobody had realized the seriousness of the situation, and no one had reported it. If it weren’t for the appearance of high-level Demon Clan members this time, this matter might have remained hidden.
For thousands of years, the Demon Clan had been infiltrating the world through this rift repeatedly. This was something only he and Yue Xiuzhi knew about.
Many weak and unsuspecting demons had unintentionally emerged from the rift, but the people of the small city, who had long been isolated from the outside world, were unaware of what demons even were.
In the eyes of the locals, demons were considered heretics. The best-case scenario for demons was to be enslaved and ruthlessly exploited as labor until they perished within a year. Some demons chose to stay in the city and raise their descendants here, but their fates were equally tragic.
When he and Yue Xiuzhi arrived, the small city was in the midst of a harsh winter, and there was an acute shortage of food. The primitive and savage local inhabitants resorted to seeing demons as a potential source of sustenance.
He vividly remembers the time when they arrived at a household. Inside the enclosure, there was a demon mother and child, treated as if they were livestock.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Both the mother and child were covered in injuries, with tattered clothes barely covering their emaciated bodies. They appeared incredibly weak.
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Her reckless determination startled the two men, catching them off guard. Despite this, they quickly regained their composure and approached with knives, preparing to sever the demon mother’s neck.
Her neck was partially severed, with only half of it still attached to her body. In her final moments, she gazed sorrowfully at her child and then collapsed, still clutching her child protectively.
The child wailed loudly.
Those two men approached, cursing and preparing to dismember the female demon. When they saw Yue Xiuzhi up in the clouds, their whole beings froze in shock. Inside, they were deeply affected by the sight.
Then, suddenly, Yue Xiuzhi descended like an arrow, straight down. However, he was a step too slow. When Yue Xiuzhi arrived, one of the female demon’s legs had already been severed, and her blood was flowing all around.
Yue Xiuzhi quickly subdued the two men, fully aware of their murderous intent. But in the end, he didn’t take their lives.
All he could see was Yue Xiuzhi standing there, his gaze stunned as he looked at the two severed legs. Then, his eyes shifted to the lifeless female demon still clutching her child.
Yue Xiuzhi remained silent for a long while, and eventually, he heard Yue Xiuzhi’s voice, a mixture of tears and laughter, as he said, “What is truly right and what is truly wrong in this world?”
“What is goodness, and what is evil?”
Yue Xiuzhi’s voice was soft, and it was unclear if he was speaking to him, speaking to himself, or questioning the world.
He sighed and responded, “There is no absolute right or wrong.”
He knew about Yue Xiuzhi’s past, how his mother had been killed by demons, fueling his deep-seated hatred for them. So, he understood the immense impact of this scene on Yue Xiuzhi.
“Yes, indeed… all these years, I still haven’t fully grasped it…” Yue Xiuzhi’s voice grew quieter, and in the end, he approached the child who had been taken away from the dead demon mother’s embrace.
Yue Xiuzhi proceeded to bury the female demon’s remains and then rescued all the demons in the city. They were all emaciated, covered in wounds.
There was even a young demon boy who appeared to be around eleven or twelve years old. He clutched a bone tightly and refused to let go.
Yue Xiuzhi softly asked him, “What is this?”
“It’s my father,” the boy replied in the demon language, which they had learned over the years due to their interactions with demons.
Yue Xiuzhi nodded and entrusted the child he had been carrying to the young demon boy, saying, “Please take care of him.”
As he spoke, he handed the young boy a small mustard bag. In reality, it contained very little, but it would at least ensure the two children’s survival in the demon realm.
Afterward, Yue Xiuzhi led them to the rift and did everything in his power to stabilize it. The group of demons entered the rift and returned to their own realm. However, Yue Xiuzhi remained standing before the rift for a long time.
The next day, as if nothing had happened, he continued their pursuit of the high-ranking demon. Yue Xiuzhi still harbored the same hatred for demons, showing no mercy in his pursuit.
However, he knew that something had changed within him.
So now, when Yue Xiuzhi told him about how poorly he had treated Pei Ming in the past due to Pei Ming’s demonic lineage, he didn’t believe it. He couldn’t fathom why such cruelty would be directed at an innocent child.
But he thought Yue Xiuzhi might be saying this to protect Fu Yuan and the others, hiding some truths from them. Thus, he refrained from asking Yue Xiuzhi any further.
What he didn’t know was that if he were to tell Yue Xiuzhi about this incident, Yue Xiuzhi would be even more shocked.
Three years before he accepted Pei Ming as his disciple, “Yue Xiuzhi” was not him at that time, but the original one, the real Yue Xiuzhi.
After bidding farewell to his old friends, Pei Ming took him back to the divine realm.
“I originally planned to send you back today, but now I’ve changed my mind,” Pei Ming raised his eyebrows.
Yue Xiuzhi’s heart sank. Could it be that Pei Ming had suddenly changed his mind and didn’t want him to leave?
But he quickly noticed the teasing expression in Pei Ming’s eyes and calmed down.
Seeing that Yue Xiuzhi wasn’t taking the bait, Pei Ming continued regretfully, “I think you’re still too weak right now. I don’t feel comfortable letting you go. I plan to help you improve your cultivation. Don’t worry, it’ll only take a day.”
Yue Xiuzhi hesitated upon hearing this. He didn’t want Pei Ming to invest too much in him, as it could lead to misunderstandings and complications. However, he also didn’t want to reject Pei Ming’s kind offer.
Thinking about how indecision could lead to complications, and feeling responsible for their relationship, Yue Xiuzhi gritted his teeth and said, “No need…”
Before he could finish his sentence, Pei Ming interrupted him.
“I want to help you improve your cultivation, not just for your sake but for mine too,” Pei Ming said. “If you get hurt because you’re too weak, I’ll have to go through the trouble of bringing you back here. Dealing with the Heavenly Way isn’t easy. So, improving your cultivation is a way to ease my worries and save me some trouble.”
Pei Ming had made his point, and Yue Xiuzhi didn’t have a good reason to refuse anymore. In fact, he found himself swayed by Pei Ming’s argument.
As a result, Yue Xiuzhi spent another night in the divine realm.
Pei Ming helped him expand his sea of Qi and meridians and shared his insights into swordsmanship with Yue Xiuzhi.
One sentence from a wise man is worth ten years of study.
Listening to Pei Ming’s explanation of swordsmanship, Yue Xiuzhi suddenly had a breakthrough, as if he had been enlightened in an instant.
For the first time, Yue Xiuzhi realized how impressive Pei Ming’s knowledge and wisdom were – he was not only a powerful deity but also a scholarly genius.
So, in the middle of the night, Yue Xiuzhi went outside to practice his swordsmanship. If it weren’t for the fact that divine realm buildings were constructed from extremely sturdy godstone, he would have almost destroyed the entire demon realm.
During his sword practice, he broke through to the mid-level of Transcendence, triggering a thunder tribulation.
Seeing the thunder tribulation approaching, Yue Xiuzhi was about to step forward to face it when Pei Ming casually dispersed it with a wave of his hand.
Yue Xiuzhi turned to Pei Ming and asked, “Didn’t you say that going through the thunder tribulation would help temper the body and that relying on external forces to pass it would leave physical defects?”
This was what Pei Ming said to him when he was “Jun Huachen”.
Pei Ming raised his eyebrows: How can this be the same! I just wanted that kid to suffer.
Pei Ming said, “It’s too painful to cross the thunder tribulation.”
Yue Xiuzhi chuckled, “You underestimate me too much. Am I supposed to be afraid of a little pain?”
Pei Ming, however, was earnest. “I can’t bear to see you suffer.”
“You need body tempering, not thunder tribulation. I’ll take you to the Golden Body Pool; it’s much more effective than some thunder tribulation.”
———————————————————————————————
As the name suggests, the Golden Body Pool is a place where people can forge golden bodies. It is a unique treasure land in the God Realm.
But with Yue Xiuzhi’s endurance, he couldn’t achieve a golden body. The best he could do was strengthen his body.
Pei Ming did what he said and immediately took Yue Xiuzhi to the Golden Body Pond.
The author has something to say:
Daming: Be a little ancestor of Benzun, only eat a few handfuls and not endure hardships
Shizun (speechless): Please shut up!
Xiaoming (angry): Don’t even stop me! I want to beat to death this beast who deceived his master and destroyed his ancestors!
The original xiuzhi seemed conflicted due to his hatred 😔 well evil and good isn’t divided by race
I’m not even sure who the CP is or how it will be dealt with in either case. Do we want the older Ming or the younger? Or both?
I foreshadow that maybe that soul will merge together but then what happens to one of the worlds that don’t have Ming?
Ahh all this thinking is making my head hurt.
Thank you for the translation!
If the original YX was having second thoughts on demons before meeting PM, does that mean that …. Could it be that the system and the heavenly way, together, conspired to have the og YX replaced with MC in order to manipulate the story and keep it consistent to the original world??? Does it mean that OG YX was virtually killed by the system…. Because he would not slaughter demons without reservation???? This… this is Evil 😱